The Value of Being Social

A little while ago, I wrote a rather lengthy response to Larisa on The Pink Pigtail Inn regarding a post she had on how being social has affected her experiences on WoW, both positively and negatively.  Big Bear Butt always talks about “all the asshats” he has had to deal with in Pick-up Groups (PuGs), and Gevlon is constantly talking about how to be an individual, and how the majority of players of this game are Morons & Slackers (M&S) especially in the ‘social’ guilds.

It’s interesting, I think, about the sheer gamut of ideas that people have about what is fun and what is not, and how being social interacts with those ideas is even more interesting.  I do think that it’s a rather individual choice, but the fact of the matter is that in this game, one is always being social, even if one is not talking to another person directly.  Even Gevlon, in his own individual manner, relies on the social nature of WoW in order to make his money and get his gear, and I’m glad to see that he’s at least come up with one value that a guild might have, even to him (not that it’s enough for him to consider being a regular guild member of any guild at this point, as he feels extensive social contact leads to drama…  He’s right, but the value of the social contact is worth potential drama for some people, perhaps?).  

Previously, while not to the same extreme, I was like Gevlon.  I felt that anything I wanted to do in WoW, I should try to do myself – anything less than that was like saying “I’ m weak – I can’t do this alone.”   I’d done a few groups in the past, with mixed results.  My first instance ever, The Deadmines, was, in retrospect, a boost, as a 40 Warrior ran a group of us through it.  I remember the run pretty well, but I still really don’t know how hard the Deadmines were at that time (this was just a few weeks after WoW went live), nor did I learn anything about group dynamics except “Enchanters would roll Need on everything, since they ‘need’ the mats from disenchanting.”  (My mage lost a nice blue staff to a rogue who ended up just Disenchanting the damn thing, to my dismay, that run.)

Further, I can be a bit of a lazy person, when it comes to social commitments.  I always felt that I wanted to do “what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it, and how I wanted to do it”, and that becoming overly social, guild or not, would lead to time/activity commitments.  I was one of those who would say, “What do I feel like doing now?”, and go do that, and flit from activity to activity, never really completing anything, but happy to just be doing what I wanted to at that moment.  I’d never thought of myself as the guild type…  How wrong was I?

[/Anecdote below for those who wish to read the full story]

The guild provides more than just a bunch of bodies to play this game with, for groups and instances.   There is, to me, a certain value to the pleasantness of the gaming experience, and until joining my guild, I’d never pursued being social, for fear of everyone in the game being like those on the General channels – all rude, boorish, antagonistic, and perhaps not all that intelligent.  The couple of PuGs I’d played in confirmed that, and so I wrote it off.

Now, being part of a good guild, even if we’re not yet at raiding status, I’m finding that I’m learning how to be a better player.  I listen and try to learn from my guildies, and I try to provide information in return.  They have practical information.  I have theoretical information.  (I try to keep up with theory on WoW more than they do – they tend to get better by experience, and many of them are quite good.)  We build upon each others’ strengths and try to support the weaknesses.  I have goals now – individual goals, but directed towards making myself better for the guild.  There’s value in that – the guild has provided me focus in this game.

I’ve been able to talk to and meet great people – people who I enjoy spending my time with.  Time is an investment, and while investing that time into this game, I’m much happier being social with the others in my guild, rather than just questing forward.  (While Gevlon might say that people who think of other players in WoW as ‘friends’ might need to get out more, I don’t necessarily agree.  It truly depends on the experience and who you meet.)  There’s value to me in the guild, for making my time spent online more enjoyable.

Being in a guild, I also know that there are logistical benefits, as well.  I don’t need to stalk the AH as much, anymore, to buy the things I need to play well.  I can do the Group quests closer to my level, not needing to level past the quests and then go back to them, if I want to finish them.  I’ve got people to share my accomplishments with, which is a good motivator for me, and I enjoy hearing what accomplishments my guildies have done as well.  Yet another benefit.

And, like Gevlon mentioned in his article, the guild master, our officers, and our existing members work to keep the environment clean and pleasant, ridding the surroundings of weeds and refuse (M&S), ensuring our guild activity time is better spent.  Value there, too.

And is there drama?  Sure.  There’s always going to be some drama when people get together on the Internet.  This drama, however, is a very small price to pay for the value outlined above.  If one can keep it that way, then the guild can be a valuable and pleasant place to be, and a good means for self and collective advancement in WoW. 

One can be an island in WoW, but there isn’t much in the surroundings.  I’m much happier now, being part of a group, or maybe an archipelago, and I don’t think I’ll ever try to go back.

My 2 yen,

Akiosama

How I Learned to Stop Being Solo and Love the Guild

[/anecdote]

I began playing WoW about 5 years ago, and until recently, I’d not really changed my individualistic personality much.  I had friends playing WoW, and I’d run with them a few times, but it always felt like I was obligated to be there, since inevitably if I missed a day, I’d get “Where were you last night, I didn’t see you log in?”  Further, I felt like I always had to lead, possibly because I was more used to the MMO experience (I’d played some EverQuest in the past), which seemed frustrating at times, especially with those friends who wouldn’t play unless grouped.  (In retrospect, though, I probably had done some of that to my more experienced EQ friends, and so, in that regards, I might be a hypocrite, but I don’t think I was actually paralyzed to do anything if my friends weren’t there, I just tended to die a lot more, but I digress.)

About a month ago, I was fortunate to run into a certain warlock in Feralas.  She was lower level than the zone, and thus she was having some trouble with a particular quest, and it just happened to be the one I was working on, myself.  I was of roughly the level of the quest itself, and was having less trouble with it, so I had been buzzing around the area, eliminating the appropriate mobs, and staying alive fairly easily, and I think I had zipped by her at one point, and killed one of the quest mobs right near to where she was – not one she was targetting at the time, but one that she may have had her eye on, while dealing with other nearby mobs.

I had noticed her, but didn’t think much at the time, just focusing on the quest at hand.  Then, I got the first whisper of many that would change my life on Cairne going forward…

“Could you please let me have one of those?  I only have 7 minutes left.”

Hmm…  Is this someone who was just trying to get one of those mobs out from under me?  What’s “7 minutes” – the amount of time the player had left before needing to log out? 

I thought, “Ah well, I’ve got more time than that, so…”  and I let her know, “Ok, sure,” and began to help clear out towards the mob in question. I even provided her the coordinates of one of those mobs, to which she told me, “I don’t have coords.”

(Funnily enough, said warlock then Feared a mob in the area where we both were, which was ripe with adds, and I mentioned that “Fearing is probably not a good idea, with all these adds.”  The fact that I was advising her on how to run in this area is still a joke to this day, the reason for which will become more apparent in just a moment.)

So, having cleared out to the mob, I led her to and let her get the quest mob she needed, and all was good.  Right?

15 minutes later, I’m looking around, and she’s still on…  What the heck?  What happened to 7 minutes?  So I ask… and she says “It was the quest timer, didn’t you know?” 

Quest timer?  What quest timer?  I didn’t see one, and told her such.  We talked for a little bit about that point, and went our separate ways…

Until the next day, when I got a whisper from a different character, asking how things were going, and informing me that she was the warlock from the night before.  Looking at her character profile, I read “79 Mage” and laughed about the fact I had tried to tell her a bit about how to play her class.  Fortunately, she didn’t hold it against me, and much talk ensued, some WoW and some non-WoW, leading to… “Want to join my guild?”

I waffled on that, for sure, as is my nature.  I was in a guild already, but it was a startup guild that wasn’t really doing anything much.  We only had 5 regular members, and not much else going on.  I said that I’d think about it, and came up with a few reasons for not leaving right away.  “I want to see what happens with this guild.”  “I want to help them get better, if I can.” And so on…

A week or two later, I was still waffling, but she and I had started grouping together on some of her other characters, doing instances and just in-general chatting away.  Finally, when I hit level  53 or so, she came up with an idea… “When you hit 55, make your Death Knight, and he can be in the guild.”

“Good idea,” I thought. But as I met a few other people in her guild, and got used to playing with others, I found myself rushing towards 55. I felt excited about playing, and energized to make progress. I found myself thinking about how to be a better group player, and not just worrying about how to be a good soloist. “What will I offer to the guild?” flitted through my mind more times than “What quest do I need to do next?”

In other words, I wasn’t even in the guild yet, and I was hooked on the concept. This mage, her guild members (and yes, it is HER guild – I found out after the fact), and just being part of a group regularly had changed my perceptions of what a guild could be, and how much fun it was to not be just by myself, in WoW.

The day I started my Death Knight, I joined The Lords of the Underworld. My shaman has since joined as well. I’ve not looked back since.

It’s been a great experience. I’m not having to think as much about “what I want to do”, as much anymore. I like being a regular, with people saying “Hey, how’s it going?” and actually conversing about how things are going, and wanting to know what’s up. We have Ventrilo, and getting to talk to these people in the game and out, has completely changed the experience, for the better, as I feel like I’m really getting to know everyone. If we ever had a guild meet, for example, I’d try like heck to make it. These people are fun.

And it all culminated, last night after 5 years of off-and-on WoW, in the most fun experience I’ve had in a group. My guildies ran The Ring of Blood for me. Just for me. And I’m supremely grateful.

So, my thanks to my guild master, Bypolar, and her warlock, Çÿñ, for helping open up a myriad of new possibilities for enjoyment in WoW. It’s been a blast, and I look forward to the instance groups being planned. And to think, I’d never have had the chance if I hadn’t been in Feralas at just the right time.

And, thanks to my guildies, Jahk, Syrhen, and Cryonic, for running The Ring of Blood for me. I’ll make it up to y’all down the road.

My 2 yen to Bypolar,

Akiosama

About the Bloglist

I’ve been reading around the WoW Blogsphere for about two months now, not really all that long, but enough that I’ve gotten a feel for a some of the blogs I read regularly.  Most of the blogs on my “World of Warcraft” bloglist I’ve been following for at least a month, and I’ve decided it’s time to give a few highlights on them, and why I read them, in the hopes of directing a few more readers their way, though I know that some of them are already huge on their own, but I consider it a good shoutout to those that continue to entertain me on a daily basis.  These will be in alphabetical order, since I don’t think I could actually rank them accurately.

 

Artisan Level – The thoughts of a female guild leader, this blog explores many of the facets about raiding guild life, what it’s like being a guild master, a little about gender issues in WoW, and a little bit of Roleplaying every now and then.  Oriniwen is articulate, direct, and informative, and her how-to posts about being a raider in a serious raiding guild are great resources to be perused.

The Big Bear Butt – Druish goodness in all its Feral nature, this blog is one of the most entertaining on the Net.  BBB, with guest appearances from his wife Cassie, enlightens his readers with excellent opinions and information on Druids, primarily Feral specced, various elements of the game, including other players, and entertaining stories of his past life as a U.S. Marine.  He’s prolific, well spoken, glib, and puts a lot of himself in his posts, to the reward of his readers, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’ve thought about starting up on his server to try to apply to the Sidhe Devils, his guild.  A must read!

Big Hit Box – Lives up to its tagline of being the definitive melee blog.  With an excellent stable of melee class writers, the site gives great information about melee classes, builds, and game issues that pertain to those classes.  I’ve used the site to great effect building Taoren (currently an Enancement Shaman), and props have to be given to Stoneybaby for his posts on the Enhancement Shaman build.

Big Red Kitty – The cream of the crop of WoW blogs, this Beast Master Hunter site is extremely entertaining, well-thought out and very informative.  BRK’s blog contains Hunter news, recaps of his WoW activities, hilarious stories of his experiences in the U.S. Air Force, presented in a unique and fun manner, through anecdotes, his “BRK and the Brain” stories, podcasts, and lots of movies and screenshots to further reader experiences.  His knowledge of the Hunter class is as such that he is currently producing the Hunter guide for Project Lore, a comprehensive multimedia WoW-guide currently in the works.

Greedy Goblin – This blog is one that deals with WoW in a manner unique to all the blogs I’ve read to date.  It is the thoughts and ideas of one Gevlon, a self-proclaimed goblin, as his focus within the game is business.  His approach to the game is very profit-oriented, and he believes in individual progression and gratification.  He tends to feel that the average players in WoW are there to buy his things and little else, and he often shuns the social aspects of the game that many others seem to value highly.  His business information is quite good, often taking aspects of the game, such as the Auction House, and showing how application of real world business practices can be done within the game.  He can be a bit direct, but if one can get through his attitude, there is good information to be found.

Holy Discipline – A very pleasant blog to read, Anea, a Dranei Holy/Discipline specced Priest, shares her views and opinions of the WoW experience.  She is very artistic in her blog endeavors, valuing the Roleplaying experience, and breathing life into her characters.  She is very eloquent, and her blog is a ray of sunshine in the WoW blog world.

The Pink Pigtail Inn – A more recent addition to my bloglist, Larisa, the Gnomish Mage, breaks the mold regarding my dislike of Gnomish characters.  She also brings to light an emotional side to the game, much like Anea, and tries to maintain that WoW is part of her life, as she intermixes her life posts with her WoW posts.  While she does not write about the more nuts-and-bolts aspects of WoW as often, her grasp of the human side of the game is excellent, and her writing conveys her message well.  She is Swedish, as well, which adds a European view to her writing, and allows for those readers not on EU servers to hear a little about life on those servers.  (She also does not mind long comments to her posts, which suits me just fine!)

The Scourge – Since I finally unlocked the Death Knight class earlier this month, I have been an avid reader of this blog.  Omenscourge is well versed in playing his tanking Death Knight, and his primers on specs, rotations, and tanking basics are a boon for all who wish to try creating a tanking Death Knight.  His information is very good, well presented, graphically enhanced, clear and concise.  I stand by this site as my main resource for playing Arhys, my Unholy Tank Death Knight.

Too Many Annas – A good site for Restoration Shamans, Anna provides good guides to building and playing the healing class.  Her guides include some real gems, such as articles on being a Healer, leveling a Shaman, and even how to communicate in a Raid.  She is also an avid Roleplayer, and she has frequent posts and guides on Roleplaying, and even a story archive for her Roleplaying posts.  A very good site for those who wish to pursue the vocation of Shaman Healer.

Welcome to Spinksville – The newest addition to my Bloglist (added today, in fact), this blog, written by Spink, a Protection Warrior from the UK, presents her opinions regarding WoW and other MMO games.  While my experience with her blog is less than that of the others I regularly read, what I have seen is very well done.  Spink has impressed me with her analyses of various issues within WoW and other games, and is not afraid to add some meat to the bones of her posts.  While slightly lengthier than the posts of other bloggers, the information presented is of no less in quality, and often with greater depth.  I look forward to exploring Spink’s writings in more detail, but I also felt that what I have read of her writing has already added me to her list of regular readers.

World of Warcraft, Eh? – The only webcomic on my list, this blog/comic is fast becoming a new favorite of mine.  A well illustrated comic, author and artist Kelly Aarons presents the life and times of Cadistra (a Tauren Druid) and Kissless (her Blood Elf Paladin companion).  The humor is good, the art is excellent, and all of it with a slightly Canadian twist to it.  I look forward to its increasing success, and a shoutout has to go to Anea of Holy Discipline for showing us the path.

 

I hope, for those who have not yet visited these blogs, that this small list helps guide you to those blogs that I frequent.  While not a comprehensive list of the blogs I read, these are among my favorites, and the ones that I check most frequently, and enjoy on practically a daily basis.

My 2 yen,

Akiosama

P.S.  The last blog on my list is that of my pal, Joe Salama, over at You Really Shouldn’t Waste Your Time Reading This!!!  While new to the blog world, he is a veteran Lakers’ fan, and has decided to put some of his basketball wisdom into words.  Give his blog a look-see, if you like basketball – he’s always up for a debate, discussion, or general Laker lovin’.

Progress – 3/23/09

Has it been that long since I wrote a progress update?  Here we go.

Progress made: 

• Levelled up to 66 on my new Death Knight, and am at 56 on my Shaman.  Moved guilds on my Shaman to be with my Death Knight in Lords of the Underworld, and am much happier for it.  (Might have to consider studying Restoration, though – we’re short on healers.)
• Picked up a Logitech G13 Advanced Gameboard controller for playing World of Warcraft.  Spent time setting it up, and a short review of it will follow soon.
• Won the last week of the regular season in my work Fantasy Basketball league.  CA’s Winning Kings are in the #2 seed, up from #4 last week, thanks to an 8-1 winning week, and have a bye for the Quarterfinals Round. 
• Wrote a couple of lengthy comments on other peoples’ blogs, and got a nice response from Larisa regarding her thoughts on the people factor of WoW.  The original article with comments is from The Pink Pigtail Inn.
• Found a great deal on HD-DVD copies of Battlestar Galactica – Season 1 and Heroes – Season 1, both series I’m curious about but not willing to purchase at even used DVD prices.  ($10 each at Fry’s, due to the demise of HD-DVD!)
• Actually was pro-active about getting myself checked out internally at the doctor’s office, and found out that I’m good at the moment.

Progress not made this week:

• Still didn’t study my Japanese.
• Still didn’t paint any figures or build any models.
• Added a potential peripheral to my wish list, the Logitech G19 Gaming Keyboard.
• Haven’t upgraded my cell phone (I’m eyeing an iPhone, I think).
• Haven’s sent my PS3 in for repair to Sony.

That’s about all for now – I need to do a review on the G13 sometime real soon.

My 2 yen,

Akiosama

A-Tankin’ We Will Go

About a week ago, I finally unlocked my Death Knight, thanks to a 11,800 XP quest run from one building in Orgrimmar to the bank for a turn in.  Not too spectacular an achievement, that last quest was, except that one of my Add-ons was set up to skip “unnecessary text”, and therefore would jump to my bank bags before I could request to turn in the quest, and since this was a default setting (and therefore unknown to me), it took me a bit to turn in the quest.  I really feel like I earned those XPs.

So, now on to becoming a Death Knight.  My impressions of the opening quests were good – entertaining, not always intuitive (Gotta watch for button changes during quests!), but fun and fresh, nonetheless.  Less of a “go here, kill these, collect that, and return” to the quests, and a lot more “blow this up with a cannon” or “ride this dragon and destroy some ballistae and hordes of troops” stuff.  Very fun, indeed.

Further, I finally found a guild  – Lords of the Underworld – thanks to my new friend and guildmaster Bypolar (Lv. 79 Mage), and her horde of alts.  It’s been a blast ever since, and I’m having a great time playing around on Arhys (dy Lutez), my Death Knight.  (Props also should be given to Lois McMaster Bujold for providing me a terrific name for my Death Knight from a fantastic book – Paladin of Souls.  I hope to return to Chalion soon!)

However, with new progress comes new tasks to learn.  Despite the fact that I have mainly soloed and DPSed my way up to 55 on my Shaman, Taoren (who is boosting guildies and collecting dust, mostly – I’ll have to work on that), I have volunteered to become the guild’s regular tank. 

Why the sudden change?  Because, apparently, we don’t have a regular tank.  Lots of DPS and much of that cloth, it seems, at the high end – the guild ran some upper-end instances last week, with groups of 4 and 5, all cloth DPS, no healers and no tanks, and while they completed the instances, much death was had by all.  As a Death Knight, I can’t heal, but I can tank, so I’m taking it upon myself to become Guild Tank.  (I have a feeling that Taoren is going to end up a Restoration Shaman in the end, but with dual-spec coming up, that might not be TOO bad…  We’ll see.)

So now, it’s all about armor, damage mitigation, learning threat control, and how to read my screen quickly enough to ensure my mates aren’t getting their cloth-wearing butts kicked.  (Not that these cloth DPSs are a bad thing, they burn down real fast, but they also get burned down real fast.)  I’m learning that there are a great many tools in the DK tank’s arsenal, but the shoutout has to go out to Death and Decay, the key to AoE tanking for DKs.

This will be a learning experience, for sure.  I’ve already respecced into a delightful Unholy tanking spec, with a dash of Blood and Frost for additional damage mitigation.  I just installed Omen, one of the standards in threat management Add-on power, and will be using it for the first time tonight.  I finished a very successful run on Scarlet Monastery last night, and without any screw-ups and deaths to Trystine (32 rogue), who I was running through the instance.  I’ll be boosting more in the upcoming days, just to get my rotation down, and to see if I can at least keep my charges alive. I’m reading, reading lots of material on how to tank, and specifically how to tank as a Death Knight – my main source is The Scourge, a great Death Knight Unholy Tank website.  And I’m learning a few things about playing this game – how to read the screen when so much is going on, how to work in a group setting, and how not to panic when the situation gets FUBARed.  Next will be how to do some of this in the BattleGrounds (shudder).

And I’m still trying to figure out how to divide my time between my two characters… especially since it seems the guild would benefit from having them both leveled up.  I have a feeling that one might be the hardest to do.

My 2 yen,

Akiosama

Hybrids vs. Pures in the Land of Azeroth

As the Big Bear Butt, Larisa at the Pink Pigtail Inn, Aurik at /hug, and many others have mentioned in recent posts, Blizzard’s tweaking of Hybrid class performance along with dual-spec implementation is making Pure class players wonder what their future holds.

I believe there are two inherent problems present in this situation that will keep this type of balance issue from ever being completely solved:

 

1) PvP and PvE are governed by the same rules, but have completely different needs.

and

2) There will generally be a larger supply of characters than slots, allowing leaders to choose the better classes for a role, rather than having to make do with a less than optimal choice for a role.

 

The first point has been the thorn in the side of the majority of people who are against the Pure-DPS being significantly better than Hybrid-DPS. The argument often sounds like “If rogues and mages become uber-DPS, hybrids won’t be able to compete!” Whether that’s true or not remains to be seen, but as can be seen through the immediate re-speccing classes go through for dealing with shift in role (which dual-specs will help out with) or shift in ability (usually after a significant patch upgrade/nerf to a class), players will tend to gravitate to the best build for a particular role. Since the non-DPS roles tend to have their light dimmed in PvP as I understand it (and I do admit, my PvP experience is severely limited – I generally PvE), crying “Versatility!” is no answer to the PvP side of this issue. However, on the PvE side, having Hybrids’ DPS performances so close to the Pure-DPS performances seems like it would make the logical choice for a leader to be the hybrid, especially once Dual-spec is implemented, especially if it’s used for change in role rather than PvE vs. PvP changes.

A partial solution to this would be some sort of class boost/change in DPS that would be only effective in a PvP situation, perhaps?  (At least for the Arena and Battlegrounds – I’m not sure how anything could completely be effected in the actual world environment and perform well.)

The second point demonstrated itself in the already mentioned issue Hybrids used to have of “Hybrid-tanks were not allowed to tank”, because there was a better choice (Warriors) and one could generally find a Warrior to fill the spot. (Tanks and healers, I know are harder to find than DPS, but at the time many leaders were willing to wait for the ‘appropriately built archetypes’ rather than give the Hybrids a chance.) Because of this, Blizzard chose to change the performance of Hybrids to near pure-role levels, because their first indications were that versatility had little value, as the leaders could look for the best in class for each slot.

Now, the situation has the potential to be reversed – as perhaps some of that versatility can be an advantage to a group, with little cost, given the the current Blizzard philosophy of role equalization. For a very small decrease in DPS potential (almost non-existent if the player is good enough), the leader now has someone who can step into a second role in a dire pinch, even if not fully set up for such a role.

So, because of the variable value of the versatility provided by the Hybrid classes, this will always be a nigh-impossible problem to completely solve. Blizzard seems to be erring on the side of inclusion, wanting to include the Hybrid classes (to the point of making what used to seem like pure classes like Warriors into Hybrid classes by allowing them access to good DPS), rather than excluding them, probably because they are the majority of classes out there, now. (I believe it’s about 6 Hybrid classes to 4 Pure classes, currently.)

Like the downplaying of difficulty seen in this game over recent months, in order to include everyone as much as possible, Blizzard seems to be helping Hybrids in order to include as many people as possible. I’m not sure what the exact numbers are, but I would have to believe that the total number of players in the 6 Hybrid classes (especially since Death Knights are one of them) has to be significantly higher than the 4 Pure classes, and therefore, supporting them, in Blizzard’s eyes, would support a larger contingent of the game than maintaining any Hybrid vs. Pure disparity would.

I do hope that the Pure-DPS classes get more tasks suited to them in the future, in order to assist in their continued survival as desired options to leaders out there in WoW.  The downplay of secondary tasks like crowd control in the higher level content has hurt these classes, and that leaves them with one purpose only – DPS – which can be filled relatively effectively by many of the classes out there, not just the Pure, which leaves the Pure classes wondering if there are potential pink slips out there waiting for them, or if they have a future in this game.

My 2 yen,

Akiosama

Progress – 3/2/09

Things done:

• Finished Rune Soldier Anime – not as climactic an ending as I would have liked, but fun nonetheless.  Good lighthearted fantasy-comedy.
• Achieved level 49.5 – Funfunfun, getting closer to DK status!

Things put off yet some more:

• Nothing painted.
• Blog post not too spectacular today.
• No Japanese studied.

Ah well, perhaps a better attempt at things tomorrow.